1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed in general to the field of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). In one aspect, the present invention relates to MEMS inertial sensor devices and methods for operating same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology is increasingly used to integrate mechanical elements, sensors, actuators, and electronics onto very small mechanical structures using conventional batch semiconductor processing techniques. For example, inertial sensors may be formed with MEMS devices on an integrated circuit wafer substrate to form various applications, such as a MEMS gyroscope that is used to detect the angular velocity.
Conventional gyro sensors have performance limitations associated with various non-idealities in both the sensor design and in manufacturing imperfections inevitable in manufacturing. For example, sensor fabrication can involve one or more process steps (e.g., deposition, etching, patterning of materials, etc.) that can contribute to imperfections in the gyroscope that result in asymmetric structures, misalignment of actuation mechanism, non-idealities in the linking or coupling springs, and deviations of the center of mass from the geometric center. These imperfections and others can result in undesirable, systematic perturbations in the form of mechanical and electrostatic forces which degrade the performance of a gyroscope. In addition, there are run-time variations that can create imperfections in the gyroscope performance. While high order observers and adaptive controllers have been proposed for cancelling or compensating for imperfections or variations that affect the MEMS gyroscope performance, such solutions are computationally prohibitively expensive, analytically complex, and/or difficult to implement.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved MEMS gyroscope apparatus, system and method of operations that addresses various problems in the art where various limitations and disadvantages of conventional solutions and technologies will become apparent to one of skill in the art after reviewing the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings and detailed description which follow, though it should be understood that this description of the related art section is not intended to serve as an admission that the described subject matter is prior art.